Projection vs. Reality
Bill Prendergast’s post is baffling from several perspectives. His opening is, to be kind, baffling:
“There is a future and there is a hope because it is our country. We own our country,” (Congresswoman Michele Bachmann) said. “It doesn’t belong to just a handful of radicals in Washington D.C.”
That’s what Bachmann calls the White House and her colleagues in Congress these days, “a handful of radicals.”
I’ll bet that most people don’t realize the extraordinary success that this particular kind of hatemongering has had. In the statement above and dozens of other statements like it: Bachmann’s premise is that the government elected to represent the people does not represent the people.
Considering the fact that President Obama and the Democratic leadership repeatedly ignored the loudly and passionately expressed will of the people with regards to health care and the Democrats’ failed stimulus bill, I think it’s easy to make a case that the Democrat-controlled congress and President Obama don’t represent the people. In fact, I think a 10-year-old could make that case.
The next part is the most troublesome:
As is true of any revolutionary premise, the consequences of this kind of talk can be bloody.
…I find it even odder to hear elected leaders from the Republican Party attack our republic. The irony is that as Americans we are all republicans who balance rights, responsibilities and sacrifices…
…Neither the tea party, the Republican Party, Palin nor Bachmann have asked for teamwork or sacrifice. Instead they use the rhetoric of rage to unite those who want to stop change.
But it cannot work because our republic is only as strong as our political institutions and civic trust…
These leaders are playing with political fire that can burn us all. The real problems that confront the republic are energy, environment and economy. These huge challenges can call out our American unity.
Building rage and flirting with violence cannot end well. Using less truth and more corporate cash will only add more Christian militias and less brotherly love to the 21st century.
The hyperbole contained in those paragraphs is stunning. In fact, there isn’t any proof that TEA Party activists are violent. Capitol Police in DC have said that the TEA Party people were so orderly that they picked up after themselves after their rallies. Pretty destructive sounding, isn’t it?
Then there’s real violence, the kind perpetrated by….liberals:
Allee Bautsch, chief campaign fundraiser for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and her boyfriend Joe Brown, were savagely beaten Friday night in New Orleans after leaving a Republican party fundraising dinner by a group of thugs who reportedly targeted the couple because they were wearing Sarah Palin pins.
Bautch’s leg was broken and Brown incurred a broken jaw and nose as well as a concussion.
The Hayride reports that a source who visited Bautsch at the hospital the day after the attack says they were told the couple was attacked for wearing Palin buttons:
Two people at the Brennan’s event have now confirmed that the protest had largely broken up by the time it ended, but we also understand from someone who visited Allee Bautsch in the hospital Saturday morning that she and Brown were followed and attacked expressly because they had Palin pins on (she heard one of the attackers say “Let’s get them, they have Palin pins on”, so the attack WAS politically motivated as its victims understood it. It was not a mugging, it was not an argument gone wrong and it was not a bar fight.
The story of a Republican and her boyfriend being viciously attacked for wearing Palin buttons has yet to make national headlines, unlike say, unfounded rumors of nasty words being said by Tea Party protesters.
It’s interesting that conservatives who talk about the left’s radicalism don’t resort to violence but radical leftists break people’s legs and give people concussions for the terrible offense of…wearing a Sarah Palin pin.
With all due respect to Mr. Prendergast and the editorialist he quoted, I’m not willing to be lectured on civility and preventing violence until i see proof that liberals not only speak out against this type of violence but help apprehend this type of dirtbag. Anyone can speak out. It takes real integrity to give up ‘one of your own’ for committing violence.
Thus far, the left doesn’t appear to be willing to help apprehend violent offenders.
Let’s remember the union thugs beat up Kenneth Gladney for the outrageous offense of selling Don’t Tread On Me miniature flags:
St. Louis County police say six people were arrested. Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances. Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started.
Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.
The Democrats started using the racist card almost a month ago in their attempts to silence TEA Party activists. In so doing, they’ve alienated people of all political stripes. Juan Williams, the veteran NPR journalist and civil rights activist, is disgusted with the Left’s smear campaign:
Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the tea party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The tea party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern. And it is insulting to all voters to suggest that criticism of President Obama, even by people who want to throw him out of office, is motivated by racism.
The SEIU thugs that beat Kenneth Gladney to a pulp deserve ridicule and outright scorn. Committing an act of violence because a black man was selling Don’t Tread On Me flags is beyond comprehensible.
Until liberals demand justice for Kenneth Gladney, Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown, I’ll ignore their calls for civility. The problem isn’t that conservatives are prone to violence. It’s that liberals, especially their union thugs, are prone to extreme violence. In fact, the Democrat powers-that-be in St. Louis refused to take Kenneth Gladney’s beating seriously:
At the same event a woman was smashed in the face by an SEIU member.
Five people were arrested including several SEIU members. Now, more than 85 days after the attack no charges have been filed against the SEIU thugs.
But, the media is painting victim Ken Gladney as an idiot shlub for trying to make a few bucks selling flags in the parking lot.
I’m disgusted with Mr. Prendergast’s tunnel-vision:
This is the America we are living in now: an attack on American political institutions and civic trust, is now an election strategy. One accepted, encouraged, legitimized by the Republican Party and its leadership.
With all due respect to Mr. Prendergast, breaking Republican fundraisers’ legs, kicking a black conservative for selling flags and giving people concussions, all of which have been documented and investigated by the police and found to be credible, is the type of behavior that doesn’t have a place in society.
That there isn’t a scintilla of proof to Mr. Prendergast’s accusations and innuendo doesn’t prevent him from peddling this disgusting crap. He should be ashamed of himself for blindly reprinting the Democrats’ talking points without even questioning the information’s voracity.
That Mr. Prendergast is silent towards that speaks volumes. That he rails agaisnt unsubstantiated allegations that are more Democratic talking points speaks even louder as to the Democrats’ integrity and fairmindedness.
Shame on Mr. Prendergast and other uber-biased lefties for criticizing conservatives for speaking allegedly violent words but then staying silent when SEIU union thugs and other lefties commit real acts of violence.
It’s time that the left started cleaning up its thugs. Enough conservatives have gotten injured by them already.
Technorati Tags: Violence, Assault, Union Thugs, SEIU, Russ Carnahan, Bill Prendergast, Anarchists, Democrats, Kenneth Gladney, Allee Bautsch, Broken Leg, Joe Brown, Concussion, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, TEA Parties, Civility, Conservatives
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
April 14th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I propose we give them the same kind of civility they gave Republicans where it counts: in Congress!
For instance, what better way to honor the late Ted “the Swimmer” Kennedy than to imitate his gentle questioning of such people as Robert Bork? Or Estrada? I can’t think of a single reason, except that, as ignored by those animals on the left, it leaves a stain on the soul (if they even have one!).
Of course, the easiest plan is to oppose anything the jackasses want to rob us of (life, liberty, our hard-earned money) until next January when the new Congress is seated, then find out who is really the party of “no!”
And finally, nothing disinfects such putrid garbage as is poured out daily by the WH and press as sunlight. The more exposure this garbage has, the more the general public will understand what a horrendous mistake it was to take our Liar-in-Chief at his teleprompter-reading word.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I am sure he would be shocked to read the history books I had in school forty or fifty years ago and learn that there were people who objected to Washington, Jefferson, Adams pere et fils, Madison… Surely the country could not have survived!
April 16th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Can’t read those books, John. They’ve all been burned because of all the misinformation in them - like how the great C. Columbus found the New World, how honorable minorities seeking religious freedom came to start the colonies intending to stay connected politically to the Old World, how honorable men founded our country based on Christian principals, how the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, etc., etc.
Now we know that ol’ Chris was nothing more than a plunderer, the colonists were either religious freaks or scoundrels, most of the Founding Fathers were nothing less than slave owners or rich old creeps who had suppression of the masses in mind, etc., etc. Most of them were CHRISTIANS, too, at that point in history!
It’s amazing how much those people changed in the fifty years since I was in high school, now that leftists/statists have control of what is taught.
They clearly want students today to know how it REALLY was.